


Tanabata

by unveiled



Category: Gouhou Drug | Legal Drug
Genre: Canon Character of Color, M/M, Original Character of Color, Original Character(s), Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:22:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unveiled/pseuds/unveiled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rikuou and Kazahaya are tasked to find a very special item, on the seventh day of the seventh month.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tanabata

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cienna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cienna/gifts).



Their client was a slight man of about thirty years with prematurely greying hair, who peered at them with a faint, good-natured smile. He was neither handsome nor ugly, and he wore his unassuming looks without fuss. Kawano Ren's eyes were the only arresting thing about him: dark and inviting, as if they'd been painted by an ink brush. Even then, a photograph would have flattened out their warmth and sheer vitality, leaving only conventional beauty to be remarked upon. Kazahaya wouldn't have given him a second glance if they passed each other on the street, unless a collision was involved.

He'd be creeped out if he had a vision of Kawano's home, though, stripped of its context. The building itself was, for all intent and purposes, commonplace. It had a small, not particularly well-maintained garden at the back, and was fast being outstripped by the flats rising high around it. Here and there in its interior were the accumulated detritus of two people living together: a pair of ballet flats carelessly kicked aside, coffee mugs ringing a table strewn with clock parts. Stacks of legal journals and papers criss-crossed with yellow highlights nested on every available shelf space, co-existing peacefully with a multilingual miscellany of poetry collections.

Kawano made barley tea for them and coffee for himself in a sunny, cheerfully mismatched kitchen, absently pushing aside a dog-eared Kobayashi Katsuyo cookbook as he did so. All perfectly normal, but for the fact that nothing hung on the walls except rows and rows of calendars -- a few handpainted and expensive, some clearly purchased for the pretty pictures or cute animals, others given away by corporations and grocery stores. They stretched from 1980 onwards, filled with notations in Kawano's graceful writing and another, bolder hand.

Kazahaya read one of them in passing, dated 7 May 1996: _Saw you! I'm 16, you're maybe 20? I wore a blue ribbon in my hair_. Then, in spidery black ink: _18, actually. Are you saying I look old for my age? Cross-reference 21 November 1998_. A smiley-face sticker, half its glitter gone with age, crowded in next to the second note.

"Please, call me Ren," said their client. Steam rose from his cup, obscuring his smile. "Kawano-san is what everyone calls my sister."

**********

The contest between what would overwhelm visitors to the Tanabata festival first -- the ceaseless din or the hyperstimulating decorations -- was narrowly won by the noise, by virtue of the music and chatter being audible long before they exited the train station. Kazahaya liked festivals, not least because something about the bright curiousity and wonder of the people streaming onto the streets always struck him as inexpressibly lovely, even with dim spots of lonely melancholy.

"Don't stray too far, you're too short to see with all these people around."

"I hope you hit your head on the decorations, you giant-sized jerk." Kazahaya glared as Rikuou's smirk grew impossibly wider. "Make yourself useful and help me find the shop."

"Ren said it appears at sunset," Rikuou reminded him. Three laughing children ran past them. "We have a few hours to go yet, or do you need a watch as well as high-heels?"

It was _very_ tempting to shove him into the jaws of the animatronic dinosaur.

"I just want to get it done, that's all," Kazahaya muttered, ducking his head. He felt Rikuou's too-old eyes on him like an itch along his spine, annoying and unavoidable.

"Something about this client has got you all puffed up like a cat. You'd be running around making trouble, any other time."

He hated that Rikuou was right. After the relative quiet of the store, Hiratsuka's Tanabata festival was like a jolt to his senses, the rippling colours of the streamers like a child's dreams held up against the summer sky. He liked the bright plastic whirlygigs, the parade of dioramas with dolls dressed up as princesses, and even the fixed grins of anime characters with mechanically-waving arms charmed him instead of creeping him out.

"Doesn't it bother you," Kazahaya said, haltingly, then stopped. Rikuou probably didn't want to talk about the woman he saw in his visions -- Tsukiko -- any more than he wanted to talk about Kei.

He wasn't even sure what he wanted to ask, if he could say it in a way that wouldn't hurt Rikuou. "Never mind."

It was probably just as well that Rikuou was distracted by a crepe seller, and the amount of chocolate sauce drenching his order made Kazahaya ill enough to distract himself. He watched Rikuou's handsome profile instead, thinking about nothing in particular.

**********

"It started with the waterlily pond," Ren said. His voice was dreamy, reflective. "We had one in the back, when Father fancied himself a landscaper. Tsubaki and I spent a lot of time playing there, making up stories.

"The day after we turned thirteen, we went out there as usual with our books and snacks. One minute she was there, talking about school, and the next minute she _wasn't_."

Ren sighed, seeming to deflate into himself. "It only lasted a few seconds at most, at the time, but it kept happening. Tsubaki said I was disappearing too, but I don't remember going anyplace else. Neither could she.

"Months later -- 30 September 1993 -- I saw a strange woman in the kitchen, washing dishes at the sink. She turned around and saw me, and smiled. And she said--"

A pause. "It was a nickname only Tsubaki knew. We were very close, you see. It's not always true what they say about twins being best friends, but we were. We even had a language for ourselves.

"From that day on, the disappearances grew longer. I would walk around corners and sometimes saw an older Tsubaki there, and Tsubaki would run into an older me on the stairs. By the time I was fifteen, I knew what Tsubaki would look like as a university student."

**********

Dusk fell across the town. The parade of dancers and their bamboo fans had come and gone, and the taiko drummers with them, leaving the acrobatic firebreathers to enthrall the evening crowd with pyrotechnics. The festival was coming to a close for the day.

A sense of urgency now dogged Kazahaya's and Rikuou's steps as they walked down the street, peering into shop windows and the stalls that lined the pavement. The shaved ice man was closing up his stall, towel slung around his shoulders, but woman who sold soft maple candy coated in chocolate was determined to stay and sell out her stock. Rikuou gave her wares a lingering look, then gamely moved on.

"We don't even know what the shop looks like," Kazahaya said, despairing. He was hot, sweaty, and his feet were aching. Undignified screaming and the throwing of things beckoned in the near future.

"It's a music box, so..." Rikuou looked around. "A souvenir shop. Or a music shop."

"Or a shop that sells antiques. Even a games stall. It could be _anything_." Kazahaya resisted the urge to pull his hair with some difficulty.

Lanterns and fairy lights began to glitter in the fast-approaching darkness, turning the street into a galaxy awash with stars. They had so little time left, Kazahaya thought, glancing anxiously at the still-red skyline.

A block ahead of them, someone had set up a small stage, decorated with silverfoil birds and streamers of every possible colour under the sun. A woman in a linen kimono, irises blooming purple across the fabric, stood before it with a sign in her hands.

It was her silence that caught Kazahaya's attention. Every other games stall had its own way of attracting customers, from twirling robots to enthusiastic young men press-ganging gawping spectators into throwing rings at bottle necks. But the woman simply smiled at passers-by, her elegant hands propping up a sign that said:

**ORIHIME AND HIKOBOSHI REENACTMENT CONTEST  
PRIZES TO BE WON**

"That one," Kazahaya said.

**********

Kawano Tsubaki possessed all the beauty her brother didn't have, but there was no mistaking the family resemblance in the shape of her eyes and the secretive, knowing curve of her smile. Vivacious as her brother was retiring, tall and solid and clearly used to getting her way by all means necessary. She was a lawyer, one in high demand if the constant buzz of her Blackberry was any indication.

"Ah, you're here to see my brother," she said, seemingly unfazed by the sight of two teenage boys in her kitchen. She reached across the table to grab the salt shaker, her arm coming down bare centimetres from Ren's nose. Ren didn't react.

There was no indication she saw him, either, as she balanced a briefcase and a bagged sandwich in her arms. "Apologies for my rudeness -- I have to run, my client's being stalked. Pleased to meet you!"

Ren watched their eyes tracking her movements as she jogged out the door, and said, gently, "She was here, wasn't she?"

Kazahaya nodded.

"We saw a medium when we were fifteen. She said our lives are out of joint in time, and that we shouldn't have been born together in the first place. Tsubaki threatened to punch her and stormed out."

Laughing shakily, Ren continued, "Then, the year after that, we stopped being able to see each other, except in flashes -- forward and backward in time."

He indicated the calendars. "That's when we started to keep track."

**********

"Good evening," said the woman with the sign. Her lips were painted a bright, traffic-signal red. "Would you like to take part in our reenactment contest?"

Rikuou grunted. "What's the prize?"

She cocked her head to one side, bird-like, but her gaze was that of a predator. "I think, dear boy, that you already know what you'll win. _If_ you win."

Kazahaya and Rikuou looked at each other. This was giving him a very bad feeling, Kazahaya thought glumly, which was how they knew one hundred percent -- no, one _thousand_ percent -- that they had the right place.

"Fine, we'll do it," Rikuou said. "What are we reenacting?"

"Didn't you read the sign?" Kazahaya hissed. "It's the story of Tanabata."

The woman tittered. "Indeed, and we have very high standards," she said, waving at their clothes. "These would hardly do."

"That's unfair!" Kazahaya burst out. "We don't have _time_ to find costumes."

"True enough," she said, unruffled. Her eyes gleamed merrily with an unspoken joke. "Then, young gentleman, we shall accept something appropriately symbolic."

"... I've got a cow-hide belt on," Rikuou said, after a long pause.

"I suppose I can make a loom," Kazahaya groaned. He blinked. "Wait, does this make me-- Rikuou, you jerk, I don't want to be Orihime!"

**********

"I was desperately lonely," Ren said, "but it helped to be forewarned, where possible, when I would see her. At least it meant I could say more than a hello. And we left letters for each other."

Kazahaya swallowed. He couldn't imagine it, being surrounded by reminders of his sister's life and not being able to touch her.

"It got too painful, after a while -- we only saw flashes of each other when we're inhabiting the same space, if not necessarily the same time. Tsubaki left for law school, I left to travel. Aimlessly.

"We returned home in the end, though. I suppose we could never have brought ourselves to leave each other alone forever."

Ren drank the last of his coffee. "We got used to it. In a way, we were happy enough. After a while, I realised we have never recorded any flashes beyond June next year. It didn't worry me at first."

"But something changed," Rikuou said.

"Yes. I went for a medical check-up last month and the prognosis wasn't good." Ren met their eyes unflinchingly, still smiling. "Stage four cancer. I only have a year to live, at most."

**********

It was a simple frame loom, fashioned out of bamboo and glue. The woman looked at it with a doubtful eyebrow, so Kazahaya, grumbling, made a shuttle out of a wooden popsicle stick and looped a fluorescent green string through the frame to serve as a makeshift warp yarn.

"I had no idea weaving was your secret skill," Rikuou murmured.

"Go walk into a tiger cage," Kazahaya snapped back, though he couldn't muster much antipathy. He looked down at the loom. "I made this once for--for someone."

Rikuou's gaze sharpened with curiousity, though for once he took mercy on Kazahaya and kept his teasing to himself. He draped a white scarf across Kazahaya's shoulders. It was embroidered with peonies, incompetently. By someone who was possibly colourblind, because no one could possibly think that shade of antibiotic pink went with _anything_.

"Let's go meet our adoring public," Rikuou said, before Kazahaya could protest.

The backdrop to the stage was a rich, velvety blue, affixed with stars cut out from foil. Kazahaya was thankful for the stage lights, which were painfully bright but meant he couldn't see the audience.

He looked at Rikuou, standing across the stage. Rikuou looked back impassively, looking unfairly good in a shirt he probably liberated off a heart-eyed schoolboy. That _asshole_. What was he supposed to say? He couldn't even remember the story all that well, and he felt _stupid_ , carrying a loom that was even worse than the one he made for Kei, which broke the first time she tried to use it.

His chest ached.

"I'm sorry we had to go through so much pain to be here," Kazahaya said, raising his voice above the din of the crowd. He didn't let himself think about the words. "But-- I think I would still go through everything again."

"We were always meant to meet each other," Rikuou said, a low rumble, his feet making no sound as he walked towards Kazahaya. Their audience was hushed, straining to listen. "It never mattered what happened after."

This was madness, Kazahaya thought, but he was caught in its dizzying tide like a dancer swept up by music, moving by instinct.

"Don't be stupid, of course it matters. I never wanted you to be hurt. And it's not just about us -- there are other people in our lives, tangled up in things they deserve better than to be forced into."

"We're two of a terrible kind." Rikuou's large hands grasped his arms, pulling him close. "I wish," Rikuou said, an odd, sad note in his voice, "we have more than a night."

"Let's go tie a wish together. Just one, and hang it where the stars can see."

Kazahaya's vision blurred. He saw, vaguely, Rikuou's face moving closer, so close he felt Rikuou's breath on his skin and heard its unsteady stutter. Their noses bumped against each other, awkward and real, making something in him tighten. The audience's roar thundered in their bones.

Later there would be imprecations and denials, but for now Kazahaya sank into Rikuou's clumsy ardour, slanting their lips together in a kiss.

**********

The music box was a modest thing, a small lacquered box with a painting of magpies on the lid. Inside were a pair of figurines, two tiny dancers made out of porcelain. Ren wound up the music box, his hands trembling a little. A merry, tinkling tune filled the kitchen, the dancers spinning around and around.

"Luna-Walzer," Ren murmured, listening avidly. "I suppose I am asking for the moon, after all."

"How do you know it'll work?" Kazahaya asked, unable to help himself. And then immediately clapped his hands over his mouth, mortified beyond belief.

Ren smiled at him, unconcerned. "I'll find out tomorrow morning when Tsubaki comes down for breakfast."

Rikuou's eyes were fixed on the box, but it was Kazahaya who said what he was obviously thinking: "It works for only until the next Tanabata, that's what the woman said."

"That's more than enough."

Rikuou raised his gaze. "Is it really?"

"We make the best out of the time we have, whatever the length," Ren said. "It's the only thing we can ask of ourselves, in the end. What does it matter? A year is more than what I would've had otherwise, without this box."

A crash interrupted them. Tsubaki stood at the kitchen door in her pyjamas, cold tea and glass shards strewn at her feet. She was staring at her brother in amazement and wonder, and an exultant delight that burned so brightly it hardly seemed possible to be contained in a fragile body of flesh.

"Hello," she croaked.

Tears ran down Ren's cheeks. "Hello," he whispered. "It's been a while."

 

**END**

**Author's Note:**

> Story notes: Yes, it is actually possible to build [a very simple frame loom](http://www.hallnet.com/Weave.html) with material that could be realistically scavenged at a festival. No promises as to whether it actually works, though.
> 
> [This](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YFMZJKtUw4) is what I had in mind as the music box ditty. Much thanks to horusporus, who came up with the music box idea.


End file.
